As we continue our series on some of the truly great and inspiring work from Google Labs that tickles our fancy, I couldn’t help but choose The Johnny Cash Project as my favorite fancy-tickler.
Of course, being a fan of Johnny Cash made this project particularly compelling on a personal level, but what I find most incredible about this effort is the way that it invites all of Mr. Cash’s fans to share an artistic outpouring of devotion to a man they admire – and then uses those submissions to create a beautiful video for Johnny’s final recorded track, “Ain’t No Grave.” The site provides a simple set of drawing tools that allow any user to choose a frame of the video, recreate it in a way that is meaningful to them, and then submit the frame back into the cue for possible inclusion in a future iteration of the video. As there are obviously many versions of each frame provided from fans (over 250,000 frame drawings have been submitted), the video is constantly updated to feature a different selection of user-provided frames – making this video a living, breathing homage to a man who sadly is not here to revel in the results of the inspiration he provided through his music and life.
This kind of collaboration isn’t new by any means, but unique in the sense that the user’s relationship to the project doesn’t end when they click submit. The project doesn’t end when there are drawings for every frame. It doesn’t end when someone managing the project decides they don’t like your drawing. The users contribution lives on. Like the legacy of a boy named Sue. To hear more from some of those inspired fans commenting on their involvement in the project, check this out:
